The Wild, Irreverent Life of Joe Carstairs

“Most men lead lives of quiet desperation,” the transcendentalist philosopher Henry David Thoreauonce famously observed. But then again, there are some who live and die noisily, singing their own special song at the top of their lungs—and some of them aren’t even men.

Marion Barbara “Joe” Carstairs was a Standard Oil heiress, though she no doubt would have preferred to be called an heir. Her dope-addled mother married four times (once to a guy named Francis Francis). Joe herself, born in London in 1900, didn’t stay Marion for long—in short order she swapped frilly dresses for Savile Row suits; acquired numerous tattoos; and had her first affair, with Oscar’s niece, Dolly Wilde. She drove an ambulance in France in World War I, ran a car service in London with other women that was called X-Garage, became a champion speedboat racer, and, ever restless, bought an island in the Caribbean where she reigned and ruled. She had relationships with many beautiful women—Tallulah Bankhead, Mabel Mercer, and Marlene Dietrich among them—but the greatest love of her life was a 12-inch boy doll that she named Lord Tod Wadley.

I have always had a soft spot for Carstairs: Not only do I stand in awe of those brave enough to live out, proud lives in the dark homophobic decades of the early and mid-20th century (though it did help to be rich), but I am also a doll collector (I mean, what are the odds?).

Now, 22 years after Carstairs’s death, some of her affects—jewelry, objects, and a vast archive of photographs—are being auctioned at Doyle next Wednesday. When I found out that that these things—her Dietrich photos, her gold cigarette case, her monogrammed cuff links, a needlepoint pillow depicting Wadley—were at Doyle, I begged for an early preview. (The official preview is today through January 27.) I knew that Lord Wadley wouldn’t be there—he was cremated with Carstairs, alas—but here was his tiny gold cigar case complete with miniature cigars, his miniscule calling cards in their Cartier box, and even two of his friends.

And there was also a series of audiotapes that Carstairs recorded with an eye toward an autobiography that was never written. If I have the winning bid on Wednesday—And I hope I do! Please don’t bid against me!—I could listen to those tapes, I could fondle the calling cards, I could bribe my toys with those tiny cigars!

But even if those things do end up in my silly cluttered house, would I really own even the slightest bit of Joe’s spirit, her wild irreverence, the crazy divine way she lived her life?